African Dust Storms and Atlantic Hurricanes

This is an interesting concept. Over the past 25 years a clear correlation between the dust storms coming off the Sahara Desert has an inverse relationship to the severity and frequency of the hurricanes that are formed. The greater the dust, the lower the storm severity or frequency.

The first half of this season when there were no hurricanes, the dust was essentially pouring off the African coast. When we saw a bunch of tropical storms build up during the middle of the summer, there was no dust. Apparently this trend has been occurring for quite some time according to satellite records. The only drawback to the trend is that when the dust is high, the tendency is for the storms to move further to the west thereby increasing the liklihood of landfall in the US. It seems to me that if the presence of the dust reduces the intensity of the storms, then the potential for landfall in the US is less of an issue.

One thing that is not mentioned in the article but to me seems to be a logical extension is the potential to use dust as a way to break apart storms before they develop into a high severity. Several technologies are being explored in an attempt to break apart hurricanes before they appraoch landfall. Maybe dumoing copious amounts of sand into the path of a tropical storm could help to diminish its severity and destructive potential.

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